stakeholder-mapping

name	stakeholder-mapping
description	Map stakeholders by decision rights, impact, influence, information needs, incentives, concerns, dependencies, and engagement strategy without reducing people to a power-interest grid.

Stakeholder Mapping

Use when a product, process, or change depends on several people or groups with different authority and consequences.

Procedure

1. Define the decision or initiative and the types of stakeholder relationship that matter: owner, approver, contributor, operator, user, customer, regulator, dependency, or affected party.
2. Identify named groups or roles and record how the change affects them, what they control, and what evidence or decisions they provide.
3. Distinguish formal decision rights from informal influence and subject-matter expertise.
4. Capture incentives, concerns, likely objections, success criteria, and dependencies using evidence rather than stereotypes about role or seniority.
5. Identify stakeholders whose needs are easy to miss because they have low organizational power but high consequence or operational exposure.
6. Define engagement needs: inform, consult, co-design, approve, validate, train, or support, along with timing.
7. Record conflicts in decision rights or goals and route them to the authority that can resolve them.
8. Update the map as ownership, scope, or organizational context changes.

Decision rules

• Stakeholder mapping supports decisions and communication; it is not a political ranking exercise.
• Low influence does not mean low importance.
• Do not invent opinions for stakeholders who have not been consulted.
• Separate who decides from who must live with the outcome.

Quality gate

The map is useful when decision rights, affected groups, dependencies, information needs, and engagement actions are explicit, overlooked high-consequence stakeholders are visible, and conflicts can be routed without relying on organizational folklore.